Traditional treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery usually cause severe side effects and excruciating pain. The emergence of nanomedicines and minimally invasive therapies (MITs) has brought ...hope to patients with malignant diseases. Especially, minimally invasive nanomedicines (MINs), which combine the advantages of nanomedicines and MITs, can effectively target pathological cells/tissues/organs to improve the bioavailability of drugs, minimize side effects and achieve painless treatment with a small incision or no incision, thereby acquiring good therapeutic effects. In this review, we provide a comprehensive review of the research status and challenges of MINs, which generally refers to the medical applications of nanotechnology in photo-/ultrasound-/radiation-/magnetism-mediated therapy and imaging. Additionally, we also discuss their combined application in various fields including cancers, cardiovascular diseases, tissue engineering, neuro-functional diseases, and infectious diseases. The prospects, and potential bench-to-bedside translation of MINs are also presented in this review. We expect that this review can inspire the broad interest for a wide range of readers working in the fields of interdisciplinary subjects including (but not limited to) chemistry, nanomedicine, bioengineering, nanotechnology, materials science, pharmacology, and biomedicine.
This review systematically summarizes the research status, challenges, prospects, and potential bench-to-bedside translation of minimally invasive nanomedicines.
We evaluate the controlling factors of hydrothermal wolframite and scheelite precipitation in the quartz vein-type Jiaoxi tungsten deposit situated in the western part of the Lhasa terrane (Tibet, ...China) using texture, major and trace element mineral geochemistry, and sulfur stable isotope geochemistry. Pyrite and chalcopyrite that are intergrown with Fe-enriched wolframite and siderite, have distinct in situ S isotope compositions (δ34SV-CDT) of -31.38 to +1.77 per mille, and +2.07 to +2. per mille0;, respectively. Major and trace element contents and in situ S isotope compositions of pyrite and chalcopyrite indicate that the hydrothermal evolution involved fluid-fluid mixing and greisenization. We report evidence for an early magmatic fluid, which is characterized by the enrichment of W, Mn, Zr, Ti, Sc, and Sn and depletion of Fe. This magmatic fluid was diluted by meteoric water and interacted with biotite monzogranite porphyry to leach Fe, Mg, and Zn into the system to form wolframites with variable Fe/(Fe+Mn) ratios ranging between -013;0.84. The late Fe-enriched magmatic fluid released from the muscovite granite mixed with meteoric water that leached minor Fe and S from shale to form late shale-hosted wolframite with a Fe/(Fe+Mn) mass ratio of >0.75 and coeval siderite and sulfides. This study highlights that multiple Fe sources were present in the system, including muscovite granite-released Fe through fluid exsolution, biotite monzogranite porphyry-released Fe during greisenization, and minor Fe released from the shale as a result of meteoric water leaching.
Developing an efficient catalyst for the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is highly desired because of environmental and energy issues. Herein, we report a single-atomic-site Cu ...catalyst supported by a Lewis acid for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to CH4. Theoretical calculations suggested that Lewis acid sites in metal oxides (e.g., Al2O3, Cr2O3) can regulate the electronic structure of Cu atoms by optimizing intermediate absorption to promote CO2 methanation. Based on these theoretical results, ultrathin porous Al2O3 with enriched Lewis acid sites was explored as an anchor for Cu single atoms; this modification achieved a faradaic efficiency (FE) of 62% at −1.2 V (vs RHE) with a corresponding current density of 153.0 mA cm–2 for CH4 formation. This work demonstrates an effective strategy for tailoring the electronic structure of Cu single atoms for the highly efficient reduction of CO2 into CH4.
A black phosphorus (BP)‐based drug delivery system for synergistic photodynamic/photothermal/chemotherapy of cancer is constructed. As a 2D nanosheet, BP shows super high drug loading capacity and ...pH‐/photoresponsive drug release. The intrinsic photothermal and photodynamic effects of BP enhance the antitumor activities. The synergistic photodynamic/photothermal/chemotherapy makes BP‐based drug delivery system a multifunctional nanomedicine platform.
Licorice is a common herb which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.More than 20 triterpenoids and nearly 300 flavonoids have been isolated from licorice. Recent studies have ...shown that these metabolites possess many pharmacological activities, such as antiviral,antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antitumor and other activities. This paper provides a summary of the antiviral and antimicrobial activities of licorice. The active components and the possible mechanisms for these activities are summarized in detail. This review will be helpful for the further studies of licorice for its potential therapeutic effects as an antiviral or an antimicrobial agent.
Nanodrug‐based cancer therapy has been actively developed in the past decades. The main challenges faced by nanodrugs include poor drug loading capacity, rapid clearance from blood circulation, and ...low antitumor efficiency with high risk of recurrence. In this work, red blood cell (RBC) membrane camouflaged hollow mesoporous Prussian blue nanoparticles (HMPB@RBC NPs) are fabricated for combination therapy of cancer. The stability, immune evading capacity, and blood retention time of HMPB@RBC NPs are significantly enhanced compared with those of bare HMPB NPs. Doxorubicin (DOX), as a model drug is encapsulated within HMPB@RBC NPs with loading capacity up to 130% in weight. In addition, DOX loaded HMPB@RBC NPs show pH‐/photoresponsive release. The in vivo studies demonstrate the outstanding performance of DOX@HMPB@RBC NPs in synergistic photothermal‐/chemotherapy of cancer.
Red blood cell (RBC) membrane camouflaged hollow mesoporous Prussian blue nanoparticles (HMPB@RBC NPs) are fabricated. With RBC membrane cloaking technique, the stability, immune evading, and blood retention time of HMPB@RBC NPs are significantly increased. Doxorubicin loaded HMPB@RBC NPs show pH‐/photoresponsive release properties. The in vivo studies demonstrate that HMPB@RBC NP is a stealthy system for synergistic photothermal‐/chemotherapy of cancer.
Transition‐metal dyshomeostasis is recognized as a critical pathogenic factor at the onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorder (ND). Excess transition‐metal ions such as Cu2+ can catalyze ...the generation of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species and thereafter induce neuronal cell apoptosis. Exploring new chelating agents, which are not only capable of capturing excess redox‐active metal, but can also cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB), are highly desired for ND therapy. Herein, it is demonstrated that 2D black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets can capture Cu2+ efficiently and selectively to protect neuronal cells from Cu2+‐induced neurotoxicity. Moreover, both in vitro and in vivo studies show that the BBB permeability of BP nanosheets is significantly improved under near‐infrared laser irradiation due to their strong photothermal effect, which overcomes the drawback of conventional chelating agents. Furthermore, the excellent biocompatibility and stability guarantee the biosafety of BP in future clinical applications. Therefore, these features make BP nanosheets have the great potential to work as an efficient neuroprotective nanodrug for ND therapy.
Black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets, having the capability of capturing Cu2+ efficiently and selectively, can not only act as an antioxidant to extenuate cellular oxidative stress and inhibit cell apoptosis, but also improve the blood–brain barrier permeability under near‐infrared laser irradiation through the photothermal effect. These properties of BP nanosheets make them an efficient neuroprotective nanodrug for neurodegenerative disorder therapy.
Dilated convolution kernels are constrained by their shared dilation, keeping them from being aware of diverse spatial contents at different locations. We address such limitations by formulating the ...dilation as trainable weights with respect to individual positions. We propose Adaptive Dilation Convolutional Neural Networks (ADCNN), a light-weighted extension that allows convolutional kernels to adjust their dilation value based on different contents at the pixel level. Unlike previous content-adaptive models, ADCNN dynamically infers pixel-wise dilation via modeling feed-forward inter-patterns, which provides a new perspective for developing adaptive network structures other than sampling kernel spaces. Our evaluation results indicate ADCNNs can be easily integrated into various backbone networks and consistently outperform their regular counterparts on various visual tasks.
This work investigates systematically the phase transformation and superelasticity in TiNbTaZr alloy prepared by friction stir processing (FSP). Multiple-pass FSP with a 100% accumulated overlap to ...three passes was implemented. The influence of the processing parameters on the microstructural evolution and superelasticity in stir zone, transition zone, and heat affected zone were investigated. After recrystallization, existing dislocations gradually accommodate themselves at sub-grain boundaries. Increase in the proportion of α″ martensitic phase is always accompanied by significant reduction in the fraction of ω phase precipitation. Metastable ω phase dissolving feature is evident and promoted by dislocation gliding, especially in the specimen processed at a higher rotation speed. In nanoindentation measurements, the closer the indent applied towards the transition zone, the more martensites nucleate, thereby gradually reducing both elastic modulus and hardness via re-orientation of martensites. This study provides new insight into the surface modification of beta titanium alloys through FSP method to achieve improved mechanical properties.
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With the increasing demand for bone implant therapy, titanium alloy has been widely used in the biomedical field. However, various potential applications of titanium alloy implants are easily ...hampered by their biological inertia. In fact, the interaction of the implant with tissue is critical to the success of the implant. Thus, the implant surface is modified before implantation frequently, which can not only improve the mechanical properties of the implant, but also polish up bioactivity and osseoconductivity on a cellular level. This paper aims at reviewing titanium surface modification techniques for biomedical applications. Additionally, several other significant aspects are described in detail in this article, for example, micromorphology, microstructure evolution that determines mechanical properties, as well as a number of issues concerning about practical application of biomedical implants.
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